Back Heat VS Belly Heat (flexwatt)

[AlbertaBP]

I cant see Back heat being as effective as belly heat. As sterilite bins arnt relly completly flat, and back heat wouldnt come into direct contact with the tub like belly heat does?

Anyone care to explain how back heat exactly works.

[DooLittle]

Sorry, I'm no help. I have flexwatt belly heat. I have heard some people who went with back heat, say they didn't like it and wouldn't do it again.

[The Serpent Merchant]

I'm not a fan of back heat myself, it requires you to run the flexwatt hotter, and really isn't as effective.

Back heat attempts to heat the air in the back portion of the tub (something that flexwatt isn't great at)

It can be done but as I said before I'm not a fan of it. I personally will just stick with belly heat.

I found this on another site:

Belly heat
Pros
- Heat tape can run at lower temps because hardly any temperature is lost because the heat rises straight up through the tub.
- Gives the animal a larger area that is of similar temperature (generally something nice with the big snakes)
Cons
- Doesn't provide the animal much room if the temps were to spike
- Requires a lot of tape compared to back heat
- Tubs continually rubbing across the tape causes wear

Back heat
Pros
- Gradient is much smoother than underbelly heat
- Can heat a rack with 1/2 (or less) as much heat tape. To heat a 6 foot tall rack with belly heat would take 22' of heat tape, with back heat you can do it in 6'. That also means pulling a lot less wattage since most Flexwatt runs around 20 watts/foot.
Cons
- Have to run the heat tape a few degrees warmer than belly heat because it has to penetrate through the back of the tub
- Hard for a big animal to get their whole body on a section that's 90 degrees (for example) because the gradient runoff. Part of their body may be on 90 while the other part may be on 87)

[mattchibi]

Most people do use belly heat, but some people choose back heat for their hatchling racks since the tubs are so much smaller and dont require as much energy to heat.

[DananaPants]

I just got some new racks with back heat from reptile basics. It's my first back heat setup, and i'm pretty sure i will stick with it from now on. Here's what Rich from reptile basics had to say about back heat:

" Which is better? We have found back heat to be every bit as effective, if not more so, than belly heat. The back heat in these racks will easily warm the back 1/3 to 1/2 of the boxes to a cozy 88-90 degrees. Actually it will get hotter than that if you don't use a thermostat or rheostat which is why one is required. The heat tends to be more even than belly heat which is usually in a more concentrated 3"-4" wide strip across the bottom. The heat gradually tapers off to about 80-82 in the front of the box. Our animals very easily thermoregulate with this setup and we have switched over to entirely back heated rack systems here.
Is belly heat bad? We dont think so, we just like this better. If you will be setting up a 32 Qt. Sweater Box Rack in a room that is regularly below 74 degrees you may want to consider the belly heat option. On a Shoe box or MCB-S tubs the back heat will provide great performance in all but the coolest of rooms (below 65 degrees). One note, with belly heat racks you MUST place your thermostat probe on the heat tape itself. NOT inside one of the tubs. On the CB-70 rack we install belly heat standard. The extra long CB-70 makes back heat ineffective."

All in all i think it's different strokes for different folks, and after using both i'm in the back heat club!